VUPAC is a workstation farm:
a cluster of workstations coupled loosely together to provide
a (very coarse) parallel computing environment.
Many compute intensive
calculations do not require tightly coupled systems, and
it is possible to build workstation farms
with significant compute power for a fraction of the cost of
tightly coupled or mainframe computers.

VUPAC is primarily
being used to make atomic structure calculations and to
reconstruct data and perform Monte Carlo calculations for elementary
particle and relativistic heavy-ion experiments (see
``VUPAC Physics'' below).
It has also been used by physicists and astronomers in the department
for other purposes, such as
calculating the electromagnetic
fields surrounding DNA molecules
and studying radiative transfer models for
supernova atmospheres.

VUPAC was designed and implemented with the invaluable assitance of
Denny Burnum, Frank Kyle, and
Esfandiar Zafar of
Vanderbilt Academic
Computing and Information Services. Initial support for the project was
provided by a
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Academic Research Infrastructure
grant with matching funds from
Vanderbilt University.
Subsequent upgrades, administration, and maintenance have been funded
by the
NSF and the
Department of Energy.